Coach Joey de Dassel expects captain Peta Salter and vice-captain Emma Bradford to lead the way as a new-look Hunter Wildfires open their Jack Scott Cup campaign against Western Sydney Two Blues at Eric Tweedale Stadium on Saturday.
It will be the Wildfires' third season in the Sydney women's rugby union competition and their second in the top division. Last year's campaign was cut short due to COVID.
Hunter hit the road for their first two games before returning to Newcastle to host Warringah in round three on May 21.
De Dassel has taken on the coaching role this year and was keen to finally put the hard work of a three-month pre-season into action.
"We're not reading too much into hard games or easy games," de Dassel said.
"We don't know much about the other sides. We know that Sydney Uni will be strong. We're just really excited to be able to put in some of the things we've been trying at training.
"Obviously we want to come away with the points for the win but we'll just be looking to build some combinations between our players given it is our first game of XV-a-side rugby together.
"There's a lot of new players so we'll have a focus just on the core skills of the game and make sure we do the little things right and hopefully we can build off that throughout the game."
The only hit-outs the Wildfires have had in pre-season was at a 10-a-side gala day last weekend in Sydney, where the coach was pleased with some strong performances.
Hunter are carrying a number of injuries across their squad but de Dassel said they would still field a strong XV this weekend.
"There were certainly some decisions that we were going to have to make that we didn't have to make because of a couple of the injuries," he said.
"The depth of our squad is really good at the moment, which is a good thing for the start of the year.
"We named our captain as [five-eighth] Peta Salter again. I'm expecting a strong game from her and from [forward and] vice-captain Emma Bradford, [front-rower] Maryann Utai and [hooker] Jen Mauli, who are all local, experienced Newcastle girls.
"We've also got a number of new players to the team and to Newcastle that we're excited about seeing as well."
